GRAYLING – The Grayling Chamber of Commerce, Grayling Main Street/ Downtown Development Authority (DDA), City of Grayling, Michigan Works!, Crawford County, Grayling Visitors Bureau and Crawford County Housing Commission continue their work on ways to improve Grayling and make it a desirable destination.
On Thursday, March 8, these groups held a public input session regarding these issues. Around 20 people identified four major factors which are holding the city back. These include:
• An unskilled or under-qualified workforce
• Lack of promotion for Grayling as a destination
• Lack of community involvement
• Vacant and limited retail spaces
Most of the time that evening was spent discussing what the barriers were to changing these situations and how to fix them.
Since then, the organizations have created a new online survey for the general public. Residents can take the survey, look over the solutions discussed and even leave their own thoughts on these issues.
Rae Gosling, Program Director for Grayling Main Street, says they received about 40 responses to the survey between the first night it was posted and the next morning. It is hoped many more people will take the survey between now and March 30.
“The money is not there,” explains Gosling, concerning why more hasn't been done before. “We need the community to get involved.
“Our organizations need people to become part of our project committees. We have nine to 10 committees who need members to get this going.”
While finances are helpful, volunteers to help bring about changes are needed even more.
Executive Director of the Chamber, Traci Cook, notes their organizations are committed to helping Grayling grow and improve.
“Our organizations actually did not have enough money for these community input sessions we've been putting on,” says Cook. “We actually had to dip into our own pockets to make those possible.”
According to Gosling, the results of the survey are expected to available sometime in late April.
To take the online survey, go to http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07ef7o3lnljer6lutr/a01dojf2o8xpo/questions?continue=Continue+%3E.
